The Business Beat

New York

CMA and CICM sessions

“Want a promising career in media? Get digital. Want to hand me five clips and expect a good job? I won’t even talk to you.” ………Paul Conley

I promise to stop whipping this dead horse as soon as more students and advisers start to hear what we are being told by those in the profession.

Friday’s “new” media sessions in New York were incredible. The only disappointment was the number of students and advisers who didn’t darken the Roosevelt Ballroom door. Attendance was sparse with the exception of the keynoters.

This was an all-star lineup.

Joe McDonald, Executive News Editor, The Journal News
Vivial Schiller, Senior VP and GM, NYTimes.com
Mark Whitaker, VP of Washington Post and Newsweek Interactive
Andrew DeVigal, Editor of Multimedia, NY Times
Jason Levine, International Adobe Evangelist
David Cohn, Editor, NewAssignment.net
Paul Conley, Paul Conley Associates (consultant to B2B publishers)

We listened to each of them and interviewed five (didn’t get a one on one with Ms. Schiller) and heard what they had to say about college students and “new” media.

* A new skills set is demanded for the best jobs and for leadership positions.

* The days of five clips getting a student a good job are over at major media outlets.

* The best jobs out there require a strong knowledge of journalism and technology.

* A digital portfolio will become commonplace.

* Students who can shoot photos, video, collect audio, edit and post to the Web will have employers knocking on their door.

* Students must have a better sense of the economics and business of media.

* Media must embrace the computer science/engineering and business disciplines.

* Every student should be a serious blogger.

* The pace of change is quickening.

* New media is not a fad, but a fact.

* Entrepreneurship in media is needed desperately.

* Marketing, advertising and PR are way ahead of journalism in adopting innovation.

We would like to express our gratitude to each of the speakers. Y’all were informing, educating and entertaining.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 20th, 2007 at 2:36 pm and is filed under industry news, Academics, career talk, Multimedia views. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.